Transferring Usage Rate to Daily Fantasy Basketball
So, we’ve determined scoring leads to fantasy points, but just how reliable is the usage rate statistic? Players such as Draymond Green have a wide array of skills and still produce at an ultra-consistent rate. Only 37.4% of Green’s fantasy point production last season was attributed to his scoring (12.4 points out of the 33.15 fantasy points per game he averaged on DraftKings). Is this an outlier or must each individual player be analyzed on an individual basis?
The answer is both. It turns out using usage rate alone is actually pretty dependable. The chart below is based off data from every single NBA player from the 2014-15 season regardless of minutes. In other words, it depicts every single player that played at least one minute. The chart seeks to compare a player’s usage rate to their actual scoring output. Since every player did not play an equal number of minutes, it did not make sense to attempt to compare usage rate to total points or points per game for multiple reasons. Total points doesn’t account for players who suffered through injuries or took a while for their role to change. Points per game doesn’t account for the players who stepped in for injury or maybe played very little but ran the offense when awarded an opportunity. Therefore, I based scoring on a per-36 minute basis because that levels the playing field. Per-36 minute scoring just averages what a player’s numbers would project to if they played 36 minutes per game. It is a very helpful statistic, also available on basketball-reference, especially for players stepping in for injury. So here is how closely usage rate correlates to players’ scoring on a per-minute basis:
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